Does This Stuff Belong in a Dumpster?

Dane and I are bike riding, dumpster diving, Wisconsin brothers with a simple mission- to show America how much perfectly good food is wasted and how Americans can be a part of the solution in their own homes and at the market. On August 9th we hopped on our bicycles at bank of the Mississippi River on a journey to cycle across the state of Wisconsin (250 miles over 7 days) eating nothing but food we find in dumpsters, ie the trash, rubbish bins, waste buckets, or as we’ve come to call them, treasure chests. We had a slight bit of worry that we may go hungry but our first dumpster proved otherwise:

In a single Big Lots dumpster we found over $60 worth of chips, cereal, cookies, donuts, granola bars, and cinnamon buns. It was way more than we could carry so…

We left a box full of goodies in front of the Goodwill hoping that someone would want it. Then we were off to the Wal-Mart down the road a few blocks. We expected to see trash compactors which are impenetrable to dumpster divers but instead found a dumpster specifically for produce waste. In other words it was full of good (and some moldy) fruits and vegetables. The good news is that this Wal-Mart is taking the time to compost their produce waste rather than throw it in the dumpster. The bad news is that it was full of fruits and vegetables that were going to waste.

As you can see, we pulled out all sorts of healthy gems: bananas, papaya, potatoes, broccoli, apples, nectarines, peaches, tomatoes, and a mango.

After that we were feeling sleepy and wanted a nap but couldn’t pass up the QuikTrip dumpster. We didn’t know what we’d find but we found a monkey’s dream.

There were exactly 100 good bananas in a box completely untouched by the rest of the dumpster’s contents. We really didn’t want to see these nanners go to waste but we couldn’t carry the thirty pounds of fruit on our bike. So we came up with a solution:

And we decided to go back to the Wal-Mart and pass them out to people in the parking lot. A few people happily took us up on the offer and we left the rest by the exit for people to grab on their way home.

With full bellies we rode our bikes out of La Crosse to find a spot for an afternoon nap and a swim. Since I don’t showera dip after diving is always key. The afternoon slipped away and we hadn’t really made any distance on our bikes yet so we headed into the hilly lands of the Driftless Region to cover some ground. Fresh air, beautiful vistas, and horse drawn Amish buggies accompanied us through the farms and forests to Viroqua where we spent the night with a fellow Wisconsinite, Olive Reynolds. We were welcomed into her home and prepared ourselves a nice dinner of our Wal-Mart dumpster produce and a dozen perfectly good eggs from the Mobil dumpster a block away. Along with the eggs, we found a hoarders portion of gas station pizza slices, sandwiches, burritos, cheese curds, and french fries. Gas stations are almost always a score for this sort of junk food because they rotate the food in the warmers up to three times per day. This is the hidden cost of having hot food ready to go.

After a long day of diving, sun, and riding we were exhausted but not hungry.

Now that's taking Zero Waste to the next level! Nice job guys! – as you may know Austin is striving for Zero Waste by 2040. With some 40% of waste being FOOD WASTE! -Still have two quarts (out of 8-10 total) of delicious organic yogurt (frozen) YUM! – Saved from the dumpster – Not to mention the PLASTIC WASTE that was actually recycled as opposed to being sent full of perfectly good food to – well let's face it – NOT decompose in the dump. Rethink your resources folks! Thank you Rob Greenfield and crew for creating this awareness and opening peoples minds to alternatives! <3

It makes me sick to see so much good food go to waste. With the food and economic crisis' as they are, there should be NO reason for anymore satisfactory food to go in the trash…but most businesses continue to do so because of 'protocol'. I'm very proud of you guys for taking initiative to showcase this show change can be made, however. Bravo!

I LOVE to see this and wish commercial venues would be more thoughtful of the waste they produce. In the same breath, there are those sue-happy idiots that have made a lot of "sharing" impossible. There was a large supermarket chain in our area that used to give old bread, etc. to a chicken farmer. One day, after several years of this guy doing this, he had a large chicken die-off. The supermarket chain got sued because "they killed his chickens". Now? They waste hundreds of dollars of produce, etc. because of people like that guy. Same happened with a hog farmer that used to get produce from another place. Very sad and super glad you are bringing awareness to throw-away nation America is.

Thanks for what you're doing, guys. I substitute teach in Northern WI and I was appalled that kids who get their breakfast in the morning and didn't want to eat everything were encouraged to throw the uneaten food in the garbage. I'm not talking about half-eaten waffles, either. I'm talking about totally wrapped cereal bars, unopened juice and milk containers & untouched bananas and apples. What a horrible site to see….especially since the community where this happens has homeless & domestic violence shelters. Why can't they accumulate the uneaten, unopened food items and donate to the shelters? 🙁